As another President’s Cup tees off, and the American side takes on a watered-down international team lacking much of its top talent that defected for LIV Golf, it’s a good time to reflect on where men’s professional golf finds itself. Spoiler alert: things don’t look good.
The 2024 golf season was another marred by the ongoing divide between the PGA Tour and the Saudi-funded LIV Golf league. While outsized attention on the sport propelled the PGA Tour to ratings success throughout 2023, fatigue towards golf’s nearly three-year schism set in for 2024, and led to a viewership lull that may force both sides back to the negotiating table.
PGA Tour events saw viewership decline in 11 out of the first 12 events of the season leading up to the Masters — traditionally a time where golf viewership is strong. The end of the season fared no better. The FedEx Cup Playoffs saw viewership decline in each of its three events, finishing with 2.7 million viewers for the final round of Scottie Scheffler‘s win in the Tour Championship — a seven-year viewership low.
LIV Golf’s postseason followed suit. A shockingly low 89,000 viewers on The CW for the final round of Jon Rahm‘s individual title, and 128,000 viewers for the team championship one week later. Notably, LIV’s individual championship actually outdrew the PGA Tour’s first fall series event which averaged a paltry 69,000 viewers on Golf Channel the same day, a 77% decline from the previous year.
To state the obvious, these numbers are unsustainable. The PGA Tour has a safety net from the $750m+ it will receive in annual media rights fees through 2030, along with the multi-billion dollar investment a consortium of billionaires committed to the tour earlier this year, but there’s no question that interest in the television product is waning.
The most obvious way to recapture that audience is, of course, reunification. There’s certainly an appetite between the two sides for a coming together, but as always the devil is in the details.
Let’s take a look at the circumstances from all angles. First, reasons that the PGA Tour has to continue the status quo and reasons for LIV Golf to continue the status quo. Then, incentives for the PGA Tour to reunify and incentives for LIV Golf to reunify.
Why the PGA Tour may continue to hold out
While fans continue to be frustrated at the split in men’s professional golf, there are some strong reasons why the PGA Tour has yet to strike a deal with the Saudis. For one, the PGA Tour isn’t in the dire financial position it was just a few years ago. As just mentioned, the tour will receive in excess of $750 million in average annual value from its media rights agreements with Comcast, Paramount, and Disney. And crucially, the tour received an investment of up to $3 billion from Strategic Sports Group earlier this year — a consortium of billionaire investors that includes several owners of North American sports franchises. Between these two cash flows, the PGA Tour is on rather stable financial footing, which makes any potential Saudi investment a much less pressing issue.
Another barrier to reunification is the reintegration of LIV players back into the PGA Tour. The PGA Tour’s current membership could prove a hurdle for reintegration if players feel there isn’t sufficient punishment for defectors who took gigantic sums of money from LIV, or conversely, financial reward for those that stayed loyal to the PGA Tour. There are undoubtedly a number of current PGA Tour players who passed up LIV deals that would want to be made whole before any sort of unified tour emerges.
Separate from the logistical hurdles of reintegration, the PGA Tour has reason to believe they still have the leverage in this negotiation. LIV Golf was ultimately created as a vehicle for the Saudis to have influence over men’s professional golf — a sport that in turn opens doors to scores of business relations that the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF) may find valuable.
Despite its success in disrupting the landscape of the professional game, LIV has failed to translate that into relationships with any large American corporations. The PGA Tour, of course, maintains a number of long-term relationships with some of the largest and most recognizable American brands. LIV Golf isn’t paying billions of dollars so Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka can play in Riyadh once a year, or so a hundred thousand viewers can tune in on The CW. They’re paying billions of dollars for access. Access that, for now, remains within the confines of the PGA Tour.
Why LIV Golf may continue to hold out
The PGA Tour has leverage to push these negotiations longer, but so too does LIV Golf. The breakaway league could win a war of attrition with the PGA Tour if it so chooses. Here’s how.
While the PGA Tour has the funds to sustain itself (and its larger purses) for the time being, the tour’s long-term viability still relies on the goodwill of fans. LIV Golf, if it wants, can play the long game. The league still has near unlimited funding from the PIF, and can continue to extract pain from the PGA Tour by poaching its top talent. Last season, LIV Golf nabbed then-Masters champion Jon Rahm for an eye-watering 9-figure sum. Last week, fellow LIV golfer Phil Mickelson alluded to the tour attracting even more top talent this offseason. Continuing to dilute the PGA Tour’s talent pool would presumably force them back to the negotiating table.
Another way LIV can force the PGA Tour’s hand is through its schedule. LIV has recently shown a willingness to schedule tournaments head-to-head with some of the PGA Tour’s highest-profile tournaments, a sharp departure from its original plans to avoid such dates. The four events LIV has announced so far for the 2025 season go up against The Players, The Genesis (Tiger Woods‘ tournament), the Arnold Palmer Invitational, and the WM Phoenix Open — arguably the four most important PGA Tour tournaments of the year.
LIV also has a legitimate “product vs. product” argument. Though there are seemingly few viewers attracted to LIV at this moment in time, there’s a culture of belief within the organization that the product they put out is better than that of the PGA Tour. LIV has gone all-in on its broadcast production — pouring resources into each event that are comparable to the production of a major championship or high-profile PGA Tour event.
Then, of course, there’s the team golf aspect, which has created much of the supposed value proposition for the league via a franchising model. There’s an argument to be made that it is worthwhile for LIV to invest more time, money, and effort, into growing the brands of these teams in the hopes that they are worth significant money in the future. That may seem like a long shot — and frankly it probably is given the circumstances — but that remains the party line at LIV.
Why the PGA Tour has incentive to reunify the game
For the PGA Tour, the incentive to reunify the world of men’s professional golf is obvious. Viewers are voting with their remotes and continue to tune out of the PGA Tour. At a time of growth for golf as a recreational activity, fewer and fewer people are tuning into watch the best players in the world. Just over a week ago, only 69,000 people watched the final round of the Procore Championship — a PGA Tour event! That number is borderline unthinkable, even in today’s era of television viewership.
Golf fans are fatigued with the current state of the game. Many are looking elsewhere to get their golf fix — look at the success of the Creator Classic for instance, which pitted 16 social media golfers against each other leading up to the Tour Championship. The event had more concurrent viewers on YouTube than the final round of the Procore earlier this month — and that’s not even counting the viewership from Peacock, ESPN+, and other platforms the Creator Classic was on.
And that stable financial footing for the PGA Tour? That won’t last forever, especially if the product continues to feel diminished in the eyes of fans. Television partners surely won’t be happy continuing to pay for a tour that only has some of the world’s top talent.
Tournament sponsors have already begun to reconsider investments in the PGA Tour. Several key sponsors including Honda, Wells Fargo, and Farmers Insurance have either dropped title sponsorships for tournaments or will not renew sponsorship agreements when they expire. Corporate sponsors are in many ways the lifeblood of the PGA Tour. They contribute to the tournament’s purse, and in a reunification context, provide for just the type of hobnobbing opportunities the Saudis seek. The reality is, asking sponsors to pay more money for a diminished product isn’t sustainable, and the tour will continue to lose these sponsorship deals the longer golf’s divide lasts.
Why LIV Golf has incentive to reunify the game
LIV Golf’s reasons to reunify are perhaps the most straightforward. First and foremost, as already discussed, it gives them the influence and access they originally set out for many years ago when the thought of a Saudi-funded tour was merely fodder for weekly golf columns.
Secondly, the tour is hemorrhaging money. LIV Golf has reportedly run up a tab totaling well over a billion dollars to acquire some of the world’s top golfers, while generating enough viewership to attract just $3 million in advertising revenue. Even the PIF surely has a limit to how much money it’s willing to lose.
Thirdly, there is an embarrassment factor. Some LIV Golf events have proven very popular — generally when the tour goes to traditionally under-served golf markets like Australia. Many events, however, are sparsely attended. Add to that some consistently embarrassing television ratings that are dwarfed by the likes of NASCAR’s second-tier Xfinity Series and third-tier ACC football games that also air on The CW, and it’s a wonder whether pride will enter LIV’s calculus. The framework agreement signed between the PGA Tour and the PIF over a year ago left open avenues for LIV Golf to be part of the larger PGA Tour structure. Perhaps there is a path forward where the LIV branding remains in some fashion and the tour can save face.
What happens now?
As has been the norm since LIV Golf’s launch in 2022, it’s hard to answer how and when the warring tours will find a solution. The two sides continue to meet, even as recently as this month, to try and settle their differences. While there is certainly large incentive to get a deal across the finish line, there are plenty of hurdles to clear before such a deal is struck. Some reporting indicates the sides are close, though it would seem too late for any potential agreement to impact the 2025 season. 2026 seems like a best case scenario for golf fans yearning for reunification.
In the meantime, the question most relevant for golf fans will be just how far is either side willing to go? Both the PGA Tour and LIV Golf would likely acknowledge that the current situation is untenable, but there’s also no clean and easy solution. For now, the reality of men’s professional golf remains the same. Two diluted tours, declining interest, and four events per year that truly matter. One could hardly blame even the most ardent golf fan from tuning out under these conditions. Given the current trends, one would have to imagine the 2025 season will be yet another data point pushing the two sides to come together sooner rather than later.
